Speculative Fiction—an all-encompassing genre created to describe stories of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and other stories that have an element of “What if...” in them. A story in speculative fiction is one that adds an element of the unreal, or asks, what would become of our society if history took a different direction at some important event? Fiction with a little something extra thrown in.—William D. Richards

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Monday, August 28, 2017

Restless Spectres by A. Woodley

Release date: August 21, 2017

Subgenre: Horror, Ghost story

About Restless Spectres:

Clara was comfortable around ghosts, she'd been aware of them for as
long as she could remember and for the most part, she liked having them
around.
She had been thinking of leaving Dan for a while and the
ideal opportunity presented itself by way of an inheritance from an aunt
that she had no previous knowledge of.
Leaving her job, Dan, and her
old life behind, Clara heads for her new home and her new life but she
soon finds out that she's forced to share her home with an unseen, evil
presence that clearly doesn't want her there.
Needing to confront the
vicious malevolent spirit or leave her precious new home, Clara tries
to carve out a new life, while attempting to rid her castle of the evil
presence that threatens to destroy her planned livelihood or her life.

Excerpt:

She stopped short as she very nearly walked through the three
children that were standing just inside the private hallway.
Mr Jones wasn’t expecting her to stop dead and he bumped
into her, he apologised twice, his face flushed with embarrassment,
he had tried to be so professional around Clara and he was mentally
kicking himself for looking such a fool in front of her.
‘No, I’m sorry, it’s me that should be apologising; it was
completely my fault, I thought I saw something, it must be those
ghosts you were telling me about.’ Clara said as she laughed,
hoping that Mr Jones would think that she was joking. Clara winked
at the children and they smiled at her.
‘Has this ever been a children’s home?’ Clara asked Mr
Jones.
‘I don’t know but I can probably find out, I know it has had
many uses in its time, why do you ask?’
‘Oh, it just feels as though there have been children
here, which room is the kitchen? I want to see that first.’ Clara
said, quickly changing the subject and hoping that Mr Jones
wouldn’t notice.
‘That’s at the end on the left with the lounge opposite.
Both the kitchen and the lounge have patio doors leading out to the
garden.’ Mr Jones said.
Clara loved her kitchen, it had an old charm about it but it didn’t
look at all out-dated, she thought that it was just perfect for
her. She was overjoyed as she looked out into the garden. She
thought that she had caught a glimpse of someone in the garden but
it was too fleeting for her to tell whether it was another spirit
or a live person.
From having seen the three children, a boy that looked to be
around nine or ten years old and two younger looking girls, and
from also being aware of other presences around, Clara knew that
her new home definitely was haunted, although maybe not in the way
that most people thought of hauntings and ghosts.
On first entering the hotel she could tell that there were
spirits even before seeing the children but she’d had a good
feeling about the place and she thought that maybe some of the
ghosts might just need help to move on.
Clara and Mr Jones continued to look over the entire hotel
and Clara had loved almost everything about it, especially the
intricately carved wooden pieces but she would want to change some
of the soft furnishings as she really wasn’t into all of the
florals that her aunt had seemed to favour, they would have to go.

***

It was the very last suite on the top floor that gave Clara a
really bad, uneasy sense of dread as she neared the locked door.
‘This door is locked.’ Clara said as she tried to open it
but she really didn’t want to go in there.

About A. Woodley:

Born in London (South East) many moons ago (1954) & now living
in the land of the concrete cows & roundabouts (we're famous
for both) in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, UK.
I started writing poetry & children's books so long ago but did
nothing with them.
The children's books need illustrations & that is far beyond my
capabilities.
The poetry sat in folders, unattended & forgotten for the most
part until I recently came across some publishing info online.
I decided to dig out my old writings & sent off a manuscript to
a publisher, they liked my manuscript & offered me a contract
but wanted to share (refundable) costs, which was too much for my
poor finances to cope with and I had no interest in vanity
publishing anyway.
I was then told about self publishing with Amazon & checked it
out, so here I am.
My 1st two ebooks 'Glimmer of hope' and 'Life and more'
are random collections of 50 poems in each book,
I do understand that there isn't a huge market for poetry but maybe
some people will enjoy my efforts.
I think my favourite poem so far that I've written is 'I want to be
a tree'.
My Daughter & Granddaughter have given me lots of encouragement
to get published over the years & it now felt like the right
time to try.
Eventually I plan to get my children's books published with the
help of my Grandaughter, who is artistic but doesn't have a lot of
free time, so that could take a while.
I have now written several more short stories, a book of 20 murder
short stories (Murder Melange) and I'm currently writing a new
book.

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